Some people in the world have a real hard time sleeping. I’m one of those people. One night I was watching one of those late informational channels about millionaire personalities, (I was visiting someone). I learned that most millionaires fail at least 3 times at businesses before they make a million-dollar company. And when they said 3 times, they mean BIG times. Whole companies go down and out. Three times! There was something comforting about that knowledge.

I think its safe to assume that the main comfort was the fact that failure is a normal part of success; the fact that it wasn’t failure that was different about really successful people, but instead the fact that they kept getting up until it worked. On another late night show I also heard that during the time of Ben Franklin, there was a group of inventors that would get together on a regular basis, and he was a part of them. One of the main functions was support. If one of the members were struggling with a particular invention or problem, they would come to the group. And when the members saw that the inventor was at the point of despair, they would shower them with positive feedback like: “We know you can do this”, or “the answer must be right around the corner”, or other positive things. Ben Franklin recognized the value of a positive attitude; it’s essential to success.

Whenever people hear that I’m a musician, sometimes they look at me like I haven’t given up a childhood dream. Then there’s that point in time when they actually see us play, and realize I’m for real. It seems that right away, the cards of negativity are stacked against us. Its important for us to maintain our focus and inspiration.

Then there’s those people that think they know something about everything. They’ll try to tell you how to write songs, record drums, etc. and have never thought once about songwriting. They make snap judgments and decisions about experiences they don't have. Then there are people who may know something of what they’re talking about but nothing about what you’re trying to do. Then there’s just people, who from their own history, have something bad to say about everything.

People often ask me what keeps ME going in music. My answer is always, “I don’t think I could ever stop.”

It’s true. My mind is constantly thinking about songs and songwriting, or playing. I’ve been doing it for over half my life. Now it’s like breathing. When I play guitar, I hear the note before I play it, and I don’t even need to look down….even when improvising. Years ago, when I was a drummer, I never thought I would play guitar. It looked too difficult to be fun.

The point today I guess is just that rejection is a part of life. We can learn from rejection. Sometimes we can be saved by rejection. Sometimes we have unnecessary rejection. One thing that remains true though, is that there always will be rejection.

During those times, one needs to maintain the focus forward; to learn from mistakes, and troublesome people. Some people never learn this fact, but failures are the building blocks of success. Sometimes people are rejected and rejected BAD, but those, who take it personally every time, are wrong. When I see people that can’t get up it makes me sad for them. It makes me sad because no one will get up for them; they have to get up themselves.

As an artist, we need to stay connected to the source, which makes us get up again and again, if we want to see success. We need to find it, and surround ourselves with one or two people (hopefully it’s our band members), who will help us when we fail. But even if we do not have those people, we should still be able to move forward and stay focused through rejection. As I sometimes reflect, the true test to find out if someone is supposed to do something is the thing itself.